August 2015

To consider the past is to choose between regret and nostalgia. Is there any other way of looking back? And those two choices are closer to each other than we might assume, modulated by time and perspective, replacing one another as the years go by, often mixing together in a soupy mix of longing and guilt.

Young students learn the dictum early on: we must know our history or we will be doomed to repeat it; and the poets show us the devastating pull of memory on our present. In his “Ode to Memory,” Tennyson addressed memory as “Thou who stealest fire / From the fountains of the past, / To glorify the present”, and welcomed it to “Strengthen me, enlighten me! / I faint in this obscurity / Thou dewy dawn of memory.”

Emily Dickinson had a darker view (of course):

Remorse - is Memory - awake - Her Parties all astir - A Presence of Departed Acts - At window - and at Door -

Its Past - set down before the SoulAnd lighted with a Match - Perusal - to facilitate - And help Belief to stretch -

Remorse is cureless - the DiseaseNot even God - can heal - For 'tis His institution - andThe Adequate of Hell -

This month’s selections of poetry and fiction also consider that practice of looking back. Though it’s fraught with danger and pain, it can also inspire.

Enjoy!

KC Kirkley

CONTRIBUTORS:

poetry by:Jennifer Raha, Ron Riekki, and Peyton Brown

fiction by:Jack Zimmerman, Patricia Ann McNair, and Chad Cheatham

photography by:Alexander Rojas and Caitlin Crowley

Edited by KC Kirkley & Marcella Prokop

July 2015

If there’s one thing I wouldn’t expect of an e-zine devoted to “urban grit,” it’s an issue about the natural world, and that’s just why it’s so appealing to me. We all know how claustrophobic our cities can sometimes be, how in this summer heat the waves of light and noise can ricochet back and forth between the concrete and glass and aluminum, how the atmosphere seems lidded like a jar. But refreshment is not so far away.

Here we have art that calls attention to the voice of nature even in the midst of blacktop and power plants. The night sky offers something of an escape from the confines of the freeway overpasses and high-walled alleyways, a window upward to the ancient lights, the constellations of mythic gods and heroes.

The singular tree reminds us of the earth we’ve covered over, of the deep life-giving soil beneath us. It all reminds me of Gerard Manly Hopkins’ poem, “God’s Grandeur,” in which he notes that . . .

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil:

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs.

Nature calls to our most ancient selves, our forgotten spiritual identities, the mysterious deep, the expansive, timeless sky. Look up, dig down, say this month’s artists. The natural world is still with us.

KC Kirkley

CONTRIBUTORS:

poetry by:Margaret Hellwig and Leia Wilson

fiction by:Alyssandra Tobin, Thomas Broderick, and Eirik Gumeny

photography by:Biyun Feng

Edited by KC Kirkley & Marcella Prokop

June 2015

On a shelf next to my laptop, I have a ragged, discarded library copy of Philosophies of Art & Beauty, a decidedly ugly edition of textbook size and weight, which includes selections from many of the big thinkers of western philosophy. It’s an anthology of artless essays about art, compiled from the works of guys like Plato and Heidegger and Dewey. There is a dizzying number of Germans included (so much ink spilled in the names of phenomenology and dialectics!). They claim, variously, that beauty is a step toward truth (Hegel), that it is catharsis (Schopenhauer), technique (Aristotle), unity of being (Plotinus), the outpouring of genius to verbalize the moral good (Kant), and on and on.

I don’t want to pretend, here, that I understand all of these aesthetic gymnastics as a true philosopher might, but I wonder about the attempts to define beauty in terms of other, similarly slippery, concepts: truth, emotion, skill, unity, morality, etc. Is beauty simply the perfection of these other principles? Can we really say anything about art with these definitions?It seems to me, rather, that beauty is a first thing, irreducible by language or impression, ineffably personal and existential. Sure, that makes judgement of beauty impossible, which might make the old philosophers uneasy, but it seems to me a preferable state of aesthetics.

With this in mind, our June 2015 issue looks for beauty in unexpected places and movements. We see it in the defaced surfaces of billboards and shop windows, in betrayal and blacktop, in quicksilver and stripteases and escape. It all reminds me of T.S. Eliot’s “Unreal city” of “The Wasteland.” What makes the blight and despair all so beautiful to me? Perhaps it is cathartic and true and moral. Maybe it is the skill with which the artists show it to us. All I can say of it, in the end, is . . . I hope you find it as valuable as I do.

May 2015

Auguste Rodin once noted that “the artist does not perceive Nature as it appears to the common man since the artist’s emotions make him aware of the inner truths that lie beneath appearances.” This month’s edition explores the fabricated surfaces of things and what correspondence they may or may not have to what lies under them – the inner truths both hidden and revealed by appearances.

Take, for instance, our very skin. We use it to create meaning for one another, showing our surfaces like flashcards of identity: See the way the wrinkles shoot parallel across my forehead, the way I show my teeth, the way a parenthetical crease frames my mouth – do you know what is on the other side? The literature and photography of this issue celebrates these competing needs of self-revelation and self-creation. It is, like us, artifice, meant to show something new by misdirection, tomfoolery, hi-jinks, and lies. It gets under our skin by showing skin, and once there, it’s bound not to leave.

So, are the masks we wear just juvenile attempts at belonging, or are they desperate efforts to reach out from the turbid murk of our inner lives to show something heroic of ourselves to one another? It is, I believe, the artist’s duty to see the difference. Here, we are asked to consider the useful nature of choice, even when it comes to identity.

Finally, I’d like to thank Joey Pizzolato for his years of service to this e-zine. He has been an advocate, shepherd, and friend to me, and his editorial guidance of this endeavor will be missed. When I first met Joey, he struck me as a thoroughly generous enthusiast of art. He asked about my work and proceeded to listen most patiently for the next hour as I tried (fumblingly, circuitously) to explain what I was trying to accomplish in my cycle of novellas. As it turned out, I was right. Joey is not only a generous listener, but also a prodigious lover of literature, of art, of ideas. And, of course, he’s a talented writer and editor as well.

So, I wish you well in your next endeavor, Joey. Thank you for the great amount of time and effort you poured in to this e-zine.

Now, enjoy the issue!

CONTRIBUTORS:

poetry by:

Elizabeth Manno, Allie Marini Batts, Matt Carmichael

fiction by:

Matt Kimberlin, Steve Gillies

photography by:

Adel Souto

Edited by KC Kirkley

January 2015

Ah, the New Year. A time when we get to shed all our bad habits, start anew, and do things a little differently than we did the year before. It’s about taking a good, hard look at our selves, making change, and refining that which is working well.

2014 was a pretty great year for us here at Curbside. We released over twenty full-length books of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction and featured a total of sixty-seven artists and writers within the pages of our little e-zine. 2015 promises more of the same, you can be sure.

January’s e-zine looks forward to the New Year, too. Toward those tiny moments of change we will all inevitably come to. Toward refinement. There’s some great words from Mercedes Lucero, Patrick Sugrue, and Bradley Milton, and some beautiful images from Martha Clarkson. We’ve changed to format a little bit—nothing drastic, some subtle things here and there that hopefully will make the e-zine pop just a little more.

So here’s to another great year. Thanks for being a part of it. We won’t let you down.

CONTRIBUTORS:

fiction by:

Mercedes Lucero

poetry by:

Bradley J. Milton, Patrick Sugrue

photography by:

Martha Clarkson

Edited by Joey Pizzolato

December 2014

For some, the holidays are the best time of year. For others, they can be the worst. Myself, I love the holidays, but hate how insanely busy I am during this two month stretch. There are travel arrangements to make, actual travel to be had, airports and stale coffee and time changes, gifts to buy and so many things to keep track of sometimes it feels like my head might explode. But still, I can still find time to nestle up with a good book and read.

December is great because it is both an impending end and a looming new beginning. The fiction from Ian Woolen captures an end of an era, all while hinting at the beginning of something new. Poetry from Ed Tato and Will Arbery show us that no matter how down we might get this time of year, we’ll always be ok. And, hopefully, Frank Cademartori’s Summer Fair will bring a little bit of warmth to you in these cold months.

So without further ado, I give you Curbside Splendor’s December e-zine.

CONTRIBUTORS:

fiction by:

Ian Woolen

poetry by:

Will Arbery, Ed Tato

photography by:

Frank Cademartori

Edited by Joey Pizzolato

November 2014

Recently, I’ve been swept up in the new string of comic-book-inspired television. Shows like Gotham and The Flash (but not yet Agent of Shield or Arrow). And while there is nothing spectacular or even impressive about the scope of their vision or execution, I continue to watch them each week. Why? Because I’m interested in the retelling of these iconic figures, to see the ways in which we as artists inevitably fall into the pitfalls of story telling. It is in these comic book heroes, with their canonic beginnings and long histories of reinterpretation, that we are the most sensitive to the fresh, the new. Nolan’s Batman gave us a glimpse into a darker side of Bruce Wayne, a man plagued with his own demons that we hadn’t yet seen—one of the many reasons it has earned its place in our cultural conversation.

At the heart of story telling, we are always reinterpreting what has come before us. What was it about Landscape of the Fall of Icarus that inspired William Carlos Williams write his iconic poem? Why do photographers like Thomas Campone continue to look for new beauty in the Eiffel Tower, or in a scooter parked on a narrow European lane? If it really is impossible to create anything new, why doesn’t it feel that way?

Photographs are still being taken and books are still being written and we are devouring them because they are fresh, they are bold, and they are new, in their structure, their style, their point of view. They take what we expect and they turn it on its head. They show us that things aren’t as they seem.

November’s issue is a celebration of the unexpected. Lily Murphy’s highly stylized parable, the small victories in the turn of David Mainelli’s “Male Traditions,” and Benjamin Warner’s Saundersesque logic embody the familiar but make it their own in surprising ways.

At the end of the day, that’s what we are all setting out to do, right? Make sense of our place in the world. Understand it. And maybe, just maybe, see it from someone else’s point of view.

CONTRIBUTORS:

fiction by:

Lily Murphy, Benjamin Warner

poetry by:

David Mainelli, Charlie Weeks

photography by:

Thomas Campone

Edited by Joey Pizzolato

October 2014

Whether you find yourself writing late into the night, your desk lamp a lone beacon of light in a sea of darkness, or curled up with your latest read, maybe in a steamy bath, or on your favorite recliner, writing and reading are intensely personal and solo enterprises. Sure, we may have great conversations about the latest blockbuster or Indie release; we might share our own work with trusted readers, but the act of placing and plucking words from the page is an act of self-marginalization. Briefly, we sequester ourselves from the rest of the world in the hopes that our words will someday find their way back to it.

October’s issue celebrates the marginalized. A.J. Huffman’s poems perfectly capture that odd feeling of solitude that can come from living in the close quarters of the city. Colby Ornell’s flash fiction reminds us of our own, well-kept secrets; and Chandramohan S’s poem for Edward Snowden brings the conversation back to the present day and out of the world of fiction.

We all have had a friend like Dina in Jennifer Schomburg Kanke’s “Either You’re In or You’re Out,” that one friend you keep trying to forget but always ends up back on your doorstep, on your voicemail, when you least expect them. And the children in Xenia Taiga’s “The Caves”—do they not remind you of someone, with their tongues out, “long and thin, waiting.” Hungry for whatever comes next.

Of course, in the spirit of October, there are also some zombies in here. But you’ll have to find them before they find you.

CONTRIBUTORS:

fiction by:

Colby Ornell, Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, Xenia Taiga

poetry by:

A.J. Huffman, Chandramohan S.

photography by:

Susan Chong

Edited by Joey Pizzolato

September 2014

One of the few things I remember from my short stint at a psychology major at DePaul University was an afternoon discussion on emotion. There were about thirty of us packed into an ancient room, tucked away in a forgotten building on the south side of campus, sweltering in the unseasonable September heat. I don’t remember much else about that day, or exactly how the conversation went. What I do remember is scratching, love and hate = not emotions, with a large question mark next to it in my notebook.

The professor’s stance was that emotions like sadness, happiness, fear, these things were eternal, consistent, you knew them for what they were when you felt them. They were specific responses to specific situations. But love and hate, these were different, spurred by a variety of different situations, complete with their own set of emotions. And above all they were fleeting; the one you love today might not be the one you love tomorrow, or a year from now.

I turned this idea over in my head for a long time. I was eighteen and in love the way only an eighteen-year-old can be. I didn’t want to believe what she was saying; what little experience I’d had pointed completely to the contrary. But I only knew love as a word that carried a lot of weight, a word you weren’t supposed to throw around, a word you saved for a select few people. And even though I didn’t realize it at the time, that discussion was the first time I thought about love as a concept, an idea that could take many different forms.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about love again. It’s everywhere: in the movies and shows I watch, the books I read. Everyone seems to be thinking about love—what it means to love, the lengths we’ll go for it, the crazy shit it we do in its name. As writers and readers, we are drawn to love because we cannot precisely define it. Because, like the soul, or consciousness, we cannot pick it up and turn it over in our hand. We cannot touch it.

Love is complicated, too. The love we feel for our parents is not the same love we feel for an ex-lover, or our best friend, or one of the dearly departed. And I think that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about love: its many different faces and wild variations.

Art is love: it either explores it, or its borne of it (or both). Kayla Kennett, Nora Frazin, John Sierpinski, Ryan Meany, Thomas Campone, their work in this issue is testament to that fact. We ask ourselves, what is love? And they say:

August 2014

Unfortunately, the arrival of August means that summer is slowly coming to a close. And, with that knowledge, comes that unquenchable desire for one last hurrah, one more adventure, even if finances or the lack of opportunity require we staying close to home.

This month I’ll be laying low, recovering from my month in Prague, Berlin, and Budapest, and doing the rest of my summer traveling through one of the many books I’ve yet to read. Ever since I was a kid—before I ever discovered the wonder of travel—I yearned to escape into the pages of a book. Whether reading about a world populated with wizards and witchcraft or diving into a who-done-it mystery, I wanted to immerse myself in someone else’s world, and have fun while doing it.

That’s what I hope August’s issue brings you: enjoyment—the chance to go someplace else, even if you physically cannot. I hope you have just as much fun reading the fiction by San Seiters and Timmy Reed as I do. And for those of you in Chicago, the poems by Derek Lazarski are a constant reminder that we can find so many inspiring places in our own backyard. But, if you can’t escape that insatiable itch to just move, then let the three poems by David Galef on Cheung Chau transport you to Hong Kong’s very own version of Long Island, or go relive Ashley Leann Ojedas’ recent trip to Montana through her photographs.

However you might be dealing with the end of summer, remember the final lines of Wayne F. Burke’s poem: keep it going. Keep it going as summer fades to fall.

Just. Keep. It. Going.

CONTRIBUTORS:

poetry by:

David Galef, Derek Lazarski, Wayne F. Burke

fiction by:

Dan Seiters, Timmy Reed

photography by:

Ashley Leann Ojeda

Edited by Joey Pizzolato & Marcella Prokop

July 2014

This year, I will have lived nearly half my life in Texas, the other half, Chicago. It makes for an interesting response to the age-old question: where are you from? When I was living in Chicago, my response was Dallas. And now that I live in Austin, I always defer to Chicago. It’s a question that really doesn’t have a tidy answer, even though that’s what we expect from it.

When I first moved here the culture shock was more pronounced than in any country I’ve ever visited, no matter how foreign their culture may be from our own. Lack of public transit was one prominent factor—something I’d never realized I depended on so much until I had to do without. But there was also a difference in values, in the way we spend our free time and even in the way people here approach work and responsibility.

I expected Austin to feel like home, but it never did—still doesn’t. And it wasn’t until I realized that it would never feel like home that I began to feel comfortable. Austin is a new city, and like any other major metropolitan area, deeply flawed and complicated in so many ways, but blossoming nonetheless. And that, at the very least, is interesting. The writer in me wants to see how it all plays out.

But cities and people aren’t that different from one another. We are the product of place, of culture, of history, of choices that came long before but yet still affect us in a profound way. We are ever changing, and the best we can do is try to understand the sum of our parts. And I think July’s e-zine is an attempt to do just that: discover how our geography, history, and family shape the way we view ourselves.

Jessi Lee Narducci’s poem attempts to directly answer the question of where are you from? Heather Sager’s sparse story is a window into a decision that undoubtedly affects those involved for the rest of their lives. Poetry by Michael Salcman is rooted in history yet still deeply personal, and Dawn Wilson’s haunting story explores just how detrimental other people can be to our idea of self. And finally, Michelle Chen’s “Casual Walk” demands we take notice of all the things that make us what we are today.

Austin is a place where the glass and steel of the city collides with the beauty of the Texas Hill Country, and photographer Ashley Leann Ojeda captures it in all its diversity. Whatever you’re doing this month, take a moment to consider where you’re from, and what that means to you.

CONTRIBUTORS:

poetry by:

Jessi Lee Narducci, Michael Salcman, Michelle Chen

fiction by:

Heather Sager, Dawn Wilson

photography by:

Ashley Leann Ojeda

Edited by Joey Pizzolato & KC Kirkley

June 2014

When I think of summer I think of travel. For me, traveling has always been an experiment in lifestyle design—a way to live completely in the moment, breathe in every new fragrance, and consider every new sound. So rarely do we have to time to sit and really take notice of the world and all its vibrant colors. On the road we meet more new faces than we could ever hope in our day-to-day grind. Yesterday is hardly as important as today, and tomorrow is merely an afterthought to the now.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that travel is all roses and sunshine. There are always hiccups, even in the most carefully laid plans. We mix up travel dates and realize we have nowhere to sleep for a night, wander down the wrong street at the wrong time of night, only to be put back on a tram by a considerate Czech police officer, and spend entire afternoons searching Paris for an alarm clock to ensure we don’t miss the train to our next destination. Even buying something so simple as toothpaste can turn into an all day excursion.

This month, Curbside’s e-zine travels too. Frankie Concepcion’s poems take us to Manila, J.H. Martin’s to Myanmar. L.E. Malone’s fiction resides in a nondescript city that I like to imagine as New York City; Joseph Scapellato brings us home to Chicago. Then we continue onto Denver and other small mountain towns in Mitchell Grabois’ poetry. And Chrystal Berche’s Twilight Dancer series reminds us that, no matter how vivid the colors of our new locale, no matter how enthralling our own travel experiences may be, it’s the people nestled in the local pubs and the stories they share with us that really make travel worth while.

So whether or not you’re be traveling this summer, take a few moments to live vicariously through our contributors' words. Take them with you on your journey to whatever corner of the globe you call home, or might find yourself in the future.

CONTRIBUTORS:

poetry by:

Frankie Concepcion, J.H. Martin, Mitchell Grabois

fiction by:

L.E. Malone, Joseph Scapellato

art by:

Chrystal Berche

Edited by Joey Pizzolato & Marcella Prokop

May 2014

Hands down, my favorite part of being an editor here at Curbside (aside from the instant gratification I get from sending out acceptance letters) is being able to work with and publish a diverse group of writers and artists each month; people who come from all different walks of life, who may be at different stages in their careers, but nonetheless share an unwavering commitment in presenting the world as truthfully and as honestly as they can. As artists, we meticulously craft setting and character and space to serve as a thin veil to what we see as reality, a veil that is fluttering in the wind, ever exposing the wonderful and sometimes cruel experiences of living in our world and of being human. That’s what May’s issue is all about: the cyclical role of created space, and the way in which that space ends up creating us.

For the third time the e-zine features photography by Frank Cademartori, whose series Lights and Lines, in all its simplicity, captures the elegant intersection of the natural world and our manufactured space. I am thrilled to be able to share more of his work with you.

And then we have poetry from Sandra Kolankiewicz and R.P. Muha. Their use of negative space and line placement harkens back to the idea of manufactured space, and Norman Toy’s gritty—albeit more formal—poems show the way places, and people, erode with the passing of time.

Finally, I am honored to publish fiction from Mike Murray, whose words have yet to grace the pages of any other journal. And perhaps that is the greatest joy of publishing: to have a hand in getting someone’s work out into the world and see their dreams come into fruition. And if the space of this small e-zine should exist for anything, I’m grateful it should be for that, and nothing else.

CONTRIBUTORS:

poetry by:

Norman Toy, Sandra Kolankiewicz, R.P. Muha

fiction by:

Mike Murray

photography by:

Frank Cademartori

Edited by Joey Pizzolato & KC Kirkley

April 2014

April is here, and with it, spring. Down in Texas, the wildflowers are in full bloom, painting the sides of highways and railroad tracks indigo and yellow and pastel orange. The air is cool, clean, and the sun is warm. Mystep, for one, is lighter.

With spring comes renewal. We yearn to spend more time outdoors, vow to eat better, get more exercise. Maybe walk our dogs more often. We clean our cars and homes of excess as we look forward. And as much as we’d like to wipe the slate clean—really start fresh—we cannot. Winter lingers.

This issue’s contributors perfectly embody Spring’s sentiment. Never in the six months I’ve been putting together Curbside’s monthly ezine has an issue so effortlessly come together. Henry Presente and Dan Crawley’s fiction touch masterfully on the little things we can do to be better, now; and Rose Hunter’s poems compliment the stories in a way I never could’ve planned. I like to think of them as what it looks like when the winter, and all that came before it, isn’t so easy to shake. I lived in Chicago for long enough to know what that feels like.